From a 24 year old kid (paul) in US. Not sure how they do it, but food and recycled plastic is always tricky because its hard to trace where all plastic comes from. Doable, but you just need to be careful. That said, still good process and learning. Specially interesting to see the website they made for this one product. Good way to communicate https://www.earthwormproject.online/

highly on the list for V4. Up for testing! But Discourse also has limitations though since its only forum software. We’re looking into something for the entire community.. Would be a good start to collect/review a few alternatives here and try them out?

@nzchicken has recently (started to) implement docker for the website that should make it easier to run locally. more info on the readme here. So feel free to start. But its also high on our to-do list to completely rebuild this community from scratch in V4 (starting september). So you can also share feedback and we will use it when we redesign. Or even better join us in NL to actually develop it!

installed the bed. quite basic. Added some crates (which i love) on the bottom + space on the right side for other big stuff like a bike. Not sure if I will use this but also made an opening under the bed that you can open up. In this way I could still transport big stuff (like big sheets of wood, or plastic :O)

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Here is how the structure is set up.
Our community (davehakkens.nl) contains a database that stores all the information. PreciousPlastic.com is just a static website, just as storyhopper.com, projectkamp.com, phonebloks.com etc.

on map.preciousplastic.com people can add new pins (data is stored in davehakkens.nl database)

And finally we have the bazar which runs using a 3th party software (sharetribe), not our database.. Want to change this in the future though..

Installed the solar panel! Before I start wiring electronics I first took a trip to my cable supplier, they got it all! Then installed a 220Watt/hour panel + controller + 2 x12V batteries to store the electricity. The 2 x 12V batteries are wired in series this makes 24V. I’m using 24 because the van(truck) has a dynamo to charge 24V, and by using 24 you can use thinner cables (:. The little black box you see it is to divide the electricity that comes from the dynamo. First it goes to the main battery to make sure its charged then to the extra battery. In this way we make sure we’re never out of power to start. The solar panel is only charging to the extra battery.

Curious to see how much power it actually gives since there are so many variables (angle of panel, clouds, time etc) Should be enough to charge my laptop and camera stuff..

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fixing the interior! Fun thing to do. Making a plan and build. From super rough to super clean in less then a day. Yeey. Wrapped some cloth around the fibrewoool as an attempt to make sure fibres stay in and fixed it up with thin light pinewood. Had some chipwood laying around to cover up the floor.

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I hear you @anne-barrier! Found an old rusty roofrack somewhere. I want one so i can sit on top of my roof 🙂 Plus its good to mount a solar panel and move big stuff around, Fixed it up this rusty old beast, welded the open holes and repainted. Installing it on the roof turned out to be quite a challenge, these things are heavy! But with some creative thinking (binding straps around bushes on our workspace roof to lift) I managed to get it up there

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Painting plan is here! Really dislike picking colors. A million different options out there. Too many choices for what my tiny brain can handle. Did a few test ate some chocolate to boost to moral and went for…green. I was a bit sceptical to paint it myself using a paintroller (not spraypaint), but honestly its super fun to do and actually quite easy as well. Only need to make sure its not warm and there are not too many dust particles flying around. Besides this super easy!. And obviously, left a mark for the next person.

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All the rust and metal is cleaned up. Next step is a proper paint job. I really wanted to do clean one since its my first ever car I painted myself. I mean thats needs to be decent right.. But not a big fan of taping things to avoid paint on it. I stripped of everything i could. With a bit more effort disassembling parts you get a cleaner paintjob and save masking tape. And in the end i believe you actually save time and frustration.

But probably the main thing to do properly is sanding.. always a pleasure 😓Coincidentally Eduardo and Andrea from Precious Plastic Shanghai dropped by in the workspace and asked to help out with…something…. didn’t take long to connect those dots. thanks guys! 🙏

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I’ve been trying to talk with you multiple times @timhardex but it seems we talk a different language. This is the last time i’ll reply to your feedback, you’ve already gotten to much attention for the actual input you delivered. The things you address are very much from one/your point of view. Not that they are wrong, but they are not right to make drastic claims like “scams” “remove the wooddrill” “fooling us”. If it doesn’t work for you and you in fancy Europe doesn’t mean it doesn’t work for anyone else in the world.
1: Never had or heard any major negative feedback on the wooddrill. I’ve used it myself for +2 years and still use it with a basic setup. Get most of the jobs done.(not beams though)
2: Whats the point of weak shredders? I’d say that depends mainly on your own build quality and material choice. Sure it’s not industrial quality (working on that) but if construct properly you can run it for a long time.
3: Filament is in Beta, under development. says it in the title, can’t expect a solid output from that

To everyone following this thread…. Here is the thing with open source development. Many people have opinions and ways how to do things different or what they think its better from their perspective. For instance on this topic, some want to include a global average, some price per region, some their own outcome and some no number at all.

The main reason we have a number in the first place is because people kept asking us (2 years ago) how much it took me to build the machines material wise so we put my number up there. Honestly we never found a good way to give people a real local estimate because there are just so many variables. throughout the years we noticed some make it for more, some for less.. really depends on the situation.

Now. We’re totally up for changing it into something else (whatever you guys think fits) Honestly i don’t care, in the end this number is here for the people (you) that want to get started. It wasn’t my plan at all to look into this tiny detail thing since we are going to rethink from scratch again in V4.0 ,but sure if everyone thinks its stupid we look into it.

HOWEVER! We are not going to do this based on one guys bad experience who just spams his opinion all over a community he just recently joined. If we would base decisions on these impulsive loud talking characters the project would be a chaos. So @siemenc I very much appreciate you taking the time to think about this. I know you have been following long and understand where we are. Let me know if you have a good solution or road ahead we should follow.

For anyone else but specially you @timhardex. Dont scream to get what you want but work on it, inspire us and show us the way. “offering help” doesn’t mean anything if you don’t put it into action. We are constantly figuring out how we can move forward and make (what we think) big steps with the minimal resources available. I’m aware this things means the world to you but we are just a small team. We cant help out everyone with everything all the time. So be prepared to organise the work and do the heavy lifting. Or sit back, simply share your feedback on hope we will change it in V4.

Sorry we can’t please everyone with all their wished and demands. Until now everyone is always been very helpful and constructive. Working together to make it better. Hope we can keep it that way…

I’m always proud when something is repaired and think we should show it more. So wanted to just weld a sheet on top of the rusted areas and don’t use putty or other chemical resin to smoothen everything up and hide the repair. Like a scar of dedication and love 🙂 This is my first time repairing a car and welding was trickier then i imagined. Very thin metal and still some paint and rusty surfaces here and there which kills the clean weld. Next time better cleaning dave! For now i’ll fix it up a bit with the grinder

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Working on the outside of the van. Some very very very rusty areas. The roof was a disaster. Specially when you start digging in with a screwdriver to remove it you realise the areas around it are rusted as well. They don’t look like it yet, but underneath the paint its all rust. So removed all the rust, cleaned it up with a grinder and sketched out the surfaces to weld sheets on top

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I’d go for @sonik on the github approach. Nice sheet you have there! However material/scrapyard prices are different in Europe/Asia/Africa etc. . I’d say try to make a template/survey which others can fill in their amounts and crowdsource the information to get a true global perspective on realistic prices. Would love to have those numbers

Yo Guenter. It’s not that i don’t agree with your points, but your are throwing it in here very unconstructive. Just hating. Obviously we haven’t got all our shit together and there are many things to improve. Hence the Version 4 topic. We listen to feedback and try to implement as much as we can each version. You don’t need to keep repeating yourself.

If you really cant hold yourself and create new accounts to spam the forums, man up and hop on a (friendly) face to face skype call with me to clear things up. We are just trying to make plastic recycling easier for everyone and still learning every day..

* we have an automatic spam filter(akismet) , to be honest not sure what the triggers are for hiding posts